Had there been a train back to New York that afternoon Wilford would most certainly have suggested going, but as there was none he passed the time as well as he could, finding Bell a great help to him, but wondering that she could assimilate so readily with such people, declaring herself in love with the farmhouse, and saying she should like to remain there for weeks, if the days were all as sunny as this, the dahlias as gorgeously bright, and the peaches by the well as delicious and ripe. To these the city girl took readily, visiting them the last thing before retiring, while Wilford found her there when he arose next morning, her dress and slippers nearly spoiled with the heavy dew, and her hands full of the fresh fruit which Aunt Betsy knocked from the tree with a quilting rod; her dress pinned around her waist, and disclosing a petticoat scrupulously clean, but patched and mended with so many different patterns and colors that the original ground was lost, and none could tell whether it had been red or black, buff or blue. Between Aunt Betsy and Bell the most amicable feeling had existed ever since the older lady had told the younger how all the summer long she had been drying fruit, "thimble-berries, blue-berries and huckleberries" for the soldiers, and how she was now drying peaches for Willard Buxton--once their hired man. These she should tie up in a salt bag, and put in the next box sent by the society of which she seemed to be head and front, "kind of fust directress," she said, and Bell was interested at once, for among the soldiers down by the Potomac was one who carried with him the whole of Bell Cameron's heart; and who for a few days had tarried at just such a dwelling as the farmhouse, writing back to her such pleasant descriptions of it, with its fresh grass and shadowy trees, that she had longed to be there too. So it was through this page of romance and love that Bell looked at the farmhouse and its occupants, preferring good Aunt Betsy because she seemed the most interested in the soldiers, working as soon as breakfast was over upon the peaches, and kindly furnishing her best check apron, together with pan and knife for Bell, who offered her assistance, notwithstanding Wilford's warning that the fruit would stain her hands, and his advice that she had better be putting up her things for going home.
"She was not going that day," she said, point-blank, and as Katy too had asked to stay a little longer, Wilford was compelled to yield, and taking his hat sauntered off toward Linwood; while Katy went listlessly into the kitchen, where Bell Cameron sat, her tongue moving much faster than her hands, which pared so slowly and cut away so much of the juicy pulp, besides making so frequent journeys to her mouth, that Aunt Betsy looked in alarm at the rapidly disappearing fruit, wishing to herself that "Miss Cameron had not listed."